Readers respond: DHS scrutiny should be tough, but fair

Posted Dec 5, 2018

In the year since Payshience Adams was shot to death in her Douglas County foster home, state child welfare officials have told the public nothing about their agency's role in her death. Michael Sullivan / The Roseburg News-Review

Yes, the Oregon Department of Human Services must follow the law and publish the complete results of child fatality reviews within its legal deadlines. If the investigation isn’t complete within the deadline, DHS should publish the available information that won’t compromise the investigation. Thank you for your editorial (“Child Welfare’s discouraging disregard for the law,” Dec. 2) and shame on DHS for disregarding the law.

But Oregon news media should take care not to assume each child death is necessarily the fault of DHS or DHS top executives. In fact, human behavior is unpredictable, and we can’t reasonably expect the DHS to foresee and prevent every fatality, even of children who have already come to DHS’ attention. Unfairly negative child fatality stories have led to the firing of agency executives who did not actually commit errors contributing to a child’s death. DHS is already too defensive, and such knee-jerk media criticism has made it more so.

Child death reviews serve a vital public purpose and so does good media coverage of child deaths. But when non-nuanced stories scapegoat DHS or particular DHS officials who are not at fault, this undermines rather than reinforces child safety. I hope The Oregonian will take special care when it assesses or implies blame, and I wish it good luck in getting to the bottom of cases when DHS employees are, in fact, at fault.